Part 17

“Then there came into the hall of the City Fathers a woman with disheveled hair and tear-worn cheeks, who beat upon her breast and cried:—“‘Vengeance, O Wise and Great Ones! My son, my little son went to the public baths, and the venom of the Monster was upon the waters, and my son is blind forever. What will ye do, that others may not suffer my grief?’

“And the Wise and Great Ones spoke together and said:—

“‘Surely this woman is mad, that she thus fouls her lips.’ And they drove her out of their presence.

“From among their own number there came a terror and a portent. For their Leader, who had been stricken in youth, but thought himself to have thrown off the toils of the Monster, rose in his place and spoke in a voice that piped and shook:—

“‘Because no man taught me in my unripe days, I strayed into the paths of the Scarlet One. For the space of a generation I hoped; but now the clutch is upon me again, and I die. See to it, O my Fellows, that our youth no longer perish in their ignorance.’

“So he passed out from the place of honor; and the strength of his mind and his body was loosened until he died. But, rather than violate the taboo, the Wise and Great Ones gave a false name to his death, and he was buried under a graven lie.

“Finally there came to the Council Hall one with the fire of martyrdom in his eyes.

“‘Though I perish,’ he said, ‘I and mine, yet will I speak the truth for once. My daughter I have given in marriage, and the Monster has entered into the house of her marriage, and from henceforth she must go, a maimed creature, sexless and childless, to the end of her days. Shame upon this city, that it endures such shame; for my daughter is but one of many.’

“‘The shame be yours,’ replied the Fathers, ‘that you bring scandal upon your own. Go forth into exile, in the name of the Veiled Goddess, _Modesty_, beneath whose statue we meet.’

“But the man strode forward, and with a violent hand plucked the veil from the statue.

“‘Not the Protectress of Homes,’ he cried, ‘but the ally of the Monster. Not the Goddess, _Modesty_, but her sham sister, _Prudery_. Down with false gods!’

“So saying, he threw the idol to the ground, where it was shattered into a thousand pieces. With those pieces the Fathers stoned him to death.

“But in many households that night there was a baring of the Veiled Idol. And ever, behind the folds, was revealed not the pure gaze of the True Goddess, but the simper and leer of _Prudery_, mute accomplice of _Shame_.

“Thus did the city awake. Fearfully it gathered its forces; tremblingly it prepared its war upon the Monster. But the Monster is intrenched. Its venom runs through the blood of the people, poisoning it from generation to generation, so that neither the grandsons nor the great-grandsons of those who stoned the martyr to the False Goddess shall escape the curse. The Prophet has said it: ‘Even unto the third and the fourth generations.’

“_De te fabula narratur_; of you is the fable narrated.

“The Land of Parables is your country.

“The stricken city is your city.

“The Monster coils at your doorway, lying in wait for your loved ones; and no prudence, no precaution, no virtue can guard them safely against his venom so long as the Silence of Prudery holds sway.”

Dr. Strong let the newspaper fall on his lap, and looked slowly from face to face of the silent little group.

“Need I tell you the name of the destroyer?” he asked.

“Not me,” said Mrs. Clyde in a low tone. “It is a two-headed monster, isn’t it?”

The Health Master nodded. “And because we all fear to utter the words ‘venereal disease,’ our children grow up in the peril of the Monster whose two allies are Vice and Ignorance.”

“One editor in this town, at least, has some gumption,” commented Grandma Sharpless, peering over her spectacles at the sheet which Dr. Strong had let fall. “Which paper is it?”

“None, if you must know. The fact is, I read that allegory into the newspaper, not out of it.”

“Then it was your own?” asked Mrs. Clyde. “Such as it is, mine own. But the inspiration came from this headline.” He pointed to a legend in heavy type:—

DIVORCE IN THE INSIDE SET

AFTER SEX MONTHS OF MARRIAGE, MRS. BARTLEY STARR SEEKS FREEDOM—NATURE OF CHARGES NOT MADE PUBLIC

“Do you know what is back of it, Strong?” asked Clyde.

“The ruin of a life. Bartley Starr has been a ‘rounder.’ With the curse of his vices upon him he married a young and untaught girl.” He repeated with slow significance a passage from the allegory. “The Monster entered into the house of her marriage, and from henceforth she must go, a maimed creature, sexless and childless, to the end of her days.”

“Oh, no, no!” burst out Mrs. Clyde. “Not poor little, lovely, innocent Margaret Starr!”

“Too innocent,” retorted the Health Master. “And more than innocent; ignorant.”

“But Bartley Starr!” said Mr. Clyde. “Who would have supposed him such a scoundrel? And with his bringing-up, too!”

“The explanation lies in his bringing-up.”

“Nonsense! Henry Starr is as upright a man and as good a father as you can find in Worthington.”

“The former, perhaps. Not the latter, certainly. He is a worshiper of the False Veiled Goddess, I suspect. Hence Bartley’s tragedy.”

“Do you blame Bartley’s viciousness upon his father?” demanded Mrs. Clyde.

“In part, at least. I happen to know a good deal about this case. Bartley got his sex-education or miseducation from chance talk at school. He took that to college with him, and there, unguided, fell into vicious ways. I don’t suppose his father ever had a frank talk with him in his life. And I judge that little Mrs. Starr’s mother never had one with her, either. Look at the result!”

“But boys find out about such things some way,” said Mr. Clyde uneasily.

“Some way? What way? And from whom? How much has Manny found out?”

“I don’t know,” said Manny’s father.

“Why don’t you know?” persisted the Health Master relentlessly. “You are his father, and, what is more, his friend.”

“Why must Manny know?” cried Mrs. Clyde. “Surely my son isn’t going to wallow in that sort of foulness.”

“Pray God he is not!” said Grandma Sharpless, turning her old, shrewd, kind face, the eyes bright and soft with feeling, toward her daughter. “But, oh, my dear, my dear, the bitterest lesson we mothers have to learn is that our children are of the common flesh and blood of humanity.”

“Manny is clean-minded and high-spirited,” said Strong. “But not all of his companions are. Not a month ago I heard one of the older boys in his class assuring some of his fellows, in the terms of the most damnable lie that ever helped to corrupt youth, ‘Why, it ain’t any worse than an ordinary cold.’”

“That was a stock phrase of the young toughs when I was a boy,” said Mr. Clyde. “So it still persists, does it?”

“Any worse than an ordinary cold?” repeated Mrs. Clyde, looking puzzled. “What did he mean?”

“Gonorrhoea,” said Dr. Strong.

Mrs. Clyde winced back and half-rose from her chair.

“Are you going?” asked the Health Master rather ‘grimly. “Must I be mealy-mouthed on this subject? Here I am, trying to tell you something of the most deadly import, and am I to choose perfumed words and pick rose-tinted phrases?”

“Speak out, Strong,” said the head of the house. “I’ve been rather expecting this.”

“First, then: you need not worry about Manny. I talked to him, long ago.”

“But he’s only a boy, still,” said Mrs. Sharpless involuntarily.

“He enters college this fall. And I’ve made sure that he won’t take with him the ‘no worse than a cold’ superstition about a disease which has wrecked the lives of thousands of Bartley Starrs.”

“But I thought that Starr’s was the—the other and worse form,” said Mr. Clyde.

“Plain talk,” adjured the Health Master. “You thought it was syphilis?”

“Yes.”

“And you thought syphilis worse than gonorrhoea?”

“Surely!”

“Well, it isn’t. I’ll explain that in detail presently. Just now—”

“Do I have to hear all of this,” appealed Mrs. Clyde, with a face of piteous disgust.

“Well, _I_ told Manny,” said the Health Master in measured tones. “Must I be the one to tell Julia, too?”

“Julia!” cried the mother. “Tell Julia?”

“Some one must tell her.”

“That child?”

“Fourteen years old, and in high school. Last year there were ten known cases of venereal disease among the high-school girls.”[3]

[3] These and the following instances are based on actual and established medical findings.

“How horrible!”

“Bad enough. I have known worse elsewhere. In a certain small city school, several years ago, it was discovered that there was an epidemic of vice which involved practically the whole school. And it was discovered only when venereal disease broke out. Our school authorities are just beginning to learn that immorality must be combated by watchfulness and quarantine, just as contagious disease must.”

“How was the outbreak in our high school found out?” asked Grandma Sharpless.

“In a curious and tragic way. One of the boys developed a sudden and serious inflammation of the eyes. At first the ophthalmologist to whom he went was puzzled. Then he began to suspect. A bateriological analysis showed that it was a case of gonorrhoeal infection. It was by a hair’s breadth that the less infected eye was saved. The sight of the other is lost. Examination showed that the disease was confined to the eyes. By a careful bit of medical detective work, the physician and the principal of the high school determined that the infection came from the use of a bath-towel in the house of a fellow-pupil where the patient had spent two or three nights. This pupil was examined and found to have a fully developed case, which he had concealed, in fear of disgrace. Consequently, the poison is now so deep-seated in him that it may be years before he is cured. He made a confession implicating a girl in the class above him. A rigid investigation followed which brought the other cases to light.”

“I shall take Julia out of that school at once,” said Mrs. Clyde, half-crying.

“No,” controverted the Health Master gently. “I shouldn’t do that. In the complex life of a city like this, it is impossible to shelter a girl completely and permanently. Better armor her with knowledge. Besides, the danger in the school, being discovered, is practically over now. In time, and using this experience as a lever with the school authorities, we hope to get a course of lectures on hygiene established, including simple sex-instruction. Meantime this must be carried on by the mothers and fathers.”

“But what am I to say to Julia?”

“That is what I am going to tell you,” replied the Health Master, “and look to you to pass on the truth in terms too plain to admit of any misunderstanding. First, does she know what womanhood and motherhood mean?”

“Not yet, I think. She seems so young. And it’s so hard to speak of those things. But I thought I would try to explain to her some day.”

“Some day? At once! How can you think her too young? She has already undergone the vital change from childhood to womanhood, and without so much as a word of warning or reassurance or explanation as to what it means.”

“Not quite without,” put in Grandma Sharpless quietly.

“Good!” approved the Health Master. “But be sure that the explanation is thorough. Tell her the significance of sex and its relation to reproduction and life. If you don’t, be sure that others will. And their version may well be in terms which would make a mother shudder to hear.”

“Who would tell her?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“Her playmates. Do you think that girls don’t talk of the mysteries as much as boys? If so, you’re sadly in error. The first essential is that she should understand truly and wisely what it means to be a woman. That is fundamental. And now for the matter of venereal disease. I am going to lay certain facts before you all, and you can hand on to the children such modifications as you deem best.

“First, gonorrhoea, because it is the worse of the two. That is not the accepted notion, I know: but the leading specialists one by one have come around to the view, that, by and large, it does more damage to humanity than the more greatly dreaded syphilis. For one thing, it is much more widespread. While there are no accurate statistics covering the field in general, it is fairly certain that forty per cent of all men over thirty-five in our larger cities have had the disease at some time.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” broke in Mr. Clyde.

“Not to you, because you married early, and your associations have been largely with family, home-loving men. But ask any one of the traveling salesmen in your factory his view. Your traveling man is the Ulysses of modern life, ‘knowing cities and the hearts of men.’ I think that you’ll find that compared with the ‘commercial’ view, my forty per cent is optimistic.”

“But it is easily curable, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Clyde, insensibly yielding to the Health Master’s matter-of-fact tone, and finding, almost insensibly, that her interest in the hygienic problem had overcome her shamed reluctance to speak of it.

“Often in the early stages. But it is very uncertain. And once firmly fixed on the victim, it is one of the most obstinate and treacherous of diseases. It may lie dormant for months or even years, deceiving its victim into thinking himself wholly cured, only to break out again in full conflagration, without warning.

“This is the history of many ruined marriages. Only by the most searching tests can a physician make certain that the infection is stamped out. Probably no disease receives, on the average, such harmful treatment by those who are appealed to to cure it. The reason for this is that the young man with his first ‘dose’—that loathsome, light term of description!—is ashamed to go to his family physician, and so takes worthless patent medicines or falls into the hands of some ‘Men’s Specialist’ who advertises a ‘sure cure’ in the papers. These charlatans make their money, not by skillful and scientific treatment, of which they know nothing, nor by seeking to effect a cure, but by actually nourishing the flame of the disease, so as to keep the patient under their care as long as possible, all the time building up fat fees for themselves. If they were able, as they claim, to stop the infection in a few days at a small fee, they couldn’t make money enough to pay for the scoundrelly lies which constitute their advertisements. While they are collecting their long-extended payments from the victim, the infection is spreading and extending its roots more and more deeply, until the unfortunate may be ruined for life, or even actually killed by the ravages of the malignant germs.”

“I didn’t suppose that it was ever fatal,” said Clyde.

“Oh, yes. I’ve seen deaths in hospitals, of the most agonizing’ kind. But it is by virtue of its byproducts, so to speak, that gonorrhoea is most injurious and is really more baneful to the race than syphilis. The organism which causes it is in a high degree destructive to the eyes. Newborn infants are very frequently infected in this way by gonorrhoeal mothers. Probably a quarter of all permanent blindness in this country is caused by gonorrhoea. The effect of the disease upon women is disastrous. Half of all abdominal operations on married women, excluding appendicitis, are the results of gonorrhoeal infection from their husbands. A large proportion of sterility arises from this cause. A large proportion of the wives of men in whom the infection has not been wholly eradicated pay the penalty in permanently undermined health. And yet the superstition endures that ‘it’s no worse than a bad cold.’”

“There is no such superstition about syphilis, at least,” remarked Clyde.

“No. The very name is a portent of terror, and it is well that it should be so. The consequence is that the man who finds himself afflicted takes no chances, as a rule. He goes straight to the best physician he can find, and obeys orders under terror of his life. Thus and thus only, he often is cured. Terrible as syphilis is, there is this redeeming feature: we can tell pretty accurately when the organism which causes it is eliminated. Years after the disease itself is cured, however, the victim may be stricken down by the most terrible form of paralysis, resulting from it.”

“Isn’t the Ehrlich treatment regarded as a sure cure?” asked Mrs. Sharpless.

“No cure is sure. Salvarsan, skillfully administered, is as near a specific as any known form of treatment. But we don’t know whether it has any effect at all upon locomotor ataxia or general paralysis, the after effects, which may destroy the patient fifteen or twenty years after the actual disease has been cured. All locomotor ataxia and all general paralysis come from syphilis. And these diseases are not only incurable, but are as nearly a hell on earth as poor humanity is ever called upon to endure. Of course, you know that a man who is base enough to marry with syphilis dooms his children. Fortunately seventy-five or eighty per cent of the offspring of such marriages die in infancy or early childhood. The rest grow up deficient in mind or body or both. Upwards of ten per cent of all insanity is syphilitic in its origin.

“Both venereal diseases are terribly contagious. Innocence is no protection. Syphilis may be contracted from a drinking-cup or eating-utensil, or from the lips of an infected person having an open sore on the mouth. Gonorrhoea is spread by towels, by bathtubs, or from contaminated toilets. No person, however careful, is immune from either of the ‘red plagues.’ And yet the public is just beginning to be educated to the peril.”

“Why wouldn’t that be a good topic for the Woman’s Club to discuss?” asked Grandma Sharpless.

“Splendid!” said Dr. Strong. “That is, if they would allow you to talk about it.”

“_Allow_ me!” The old lady’s firm chin tilted up sharply. “Who’s going to put the ban of silence on me?”

“Nobody, I dare say, if you make up your mind to speak,” replied Dr. Strong, smiling. “But some will probably try. Would you believe that, only a short time since, a professor of hygiene in one of our leading universities had to abandon a course of lectures to the students because the wives of the faculty and trustees objected to his including venereal diseases in his course? And a well-known lecturer, who had been invited to speak on health protection before a list of colleges, suffered the indignity of having the invitation withdrawn because he insisted that he could not cover the ground without warning his hearers against the twin pestilences of vice.”

“Are the colleges so greatly in need of that sort of warning?” asked Mrs. Clyde.

“Subsequent records obtained from some of the protesting institutions showed that one third of the students had at some time been infected.”

“I’m glad you’ve told my boy,” said Mrs. Clyde, rising. “I’ll talk to my girls.”

“And I to the women,” said Mrs. Sharpless. “Then I’d better make a list, for both of you, of the literature on the subject which you will find useful,” said the Health Master. “I’ll give it to you later.”[4]

[4] The list of publications on the sex problem and venereal disease recommended by the Health Master to the Clyde family was as follows:— Published by the California Social Hygiene Society, Room 256, U.S. Custom House, San Francisco, Calif.: The Four Sex Lies, When and How to Tell the Children, A Plain Talk with Girls about their Health and Physical Development. Published by the Detroit Society for Sex Hygiene, Wayne Co. Medical Society Building, Detroit, Mich.: To the Girl who does not Know, A Plain Talk with Boys. Published by the Chicago Society of Social Hygiene, 305 Reliance Building, Chicago, Ill: Self Protection, Family Protection, Community Protection. Published by the Maryland Society for Social Hygiene, 15 East Pleasant Street, Baltimore, Md.: The So- Called Sexual Necessity in Man, The Venereal Diseases. Published by the American Federation for Sex Hygiene, 105 West 40th St., N.Y. City: List of Publications of the Constituent Societies, The Teaching of Sex Hygiene, Sex Instruction as a Phase of Social Education. Published by the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis: The Sex Problem, Health and the Hygiene of Sex.

For a time after the women had left, the two men sat silent.

“Strong,” said Mr. Clyde presently, “who is Bartley Starr’s physician?”

“Dr. Emery.”

“Why didn’t he warn him not to marry?”

“He did. He positively forbade it.”

“And Starr married that young girl in the face of that prohibition?”

“He thought he was cured. Dr. Emery couldn’t say positively that he wasn’t. He could only beg him to wait another year. Starr hadn’t the courage—or the principle; he feared scandal if he postponed the wedding. So he disregarded the warning and now the scandal is upon him with tenfold weight.”

“Isn’t there any law for such cases?”

“Not in this state. Indiana requires that parties to a marriage swear to their freedom from venereal disease and certain other ailments. Other states have followed suit. Every state ought to.”

“Why didn’t Dr. Emery go to the girl’s father, then?”

“Because of our damnable law,” returned the Health Master with a sudden and rare access of bitterness.

“You mean that the law forbids?”

“It holds the physician liable for any professional confidence violated.” Dr. Strong rose and paced up and down the room, talking with repressed energy. “Therein it follows medical ethics in its most conservative and baneful phase. The code of medical conduct provides that a physician is bound to keep secret all the private affairs of a patient, learned in the course of practice. One body, the American Institute of Homoeopathy, has wisely amended its code to except those cases where ‘harm to others may result.’ That amendment was passed with particular reference to venereal disease.”

“What about contagious disease?” asked Mr. Clyde. “Doesn’t the law require the physician to report diphtheria, for instance, and thus violate the patient’s confidence?”

“Certainly it does. All schools recognize that principle of protection to the public. Yet, in the case of syphilis or gonorrhoea, when the harm to the public health is far greater than from any ‘reportable’ disease except tuberculosis, the physician must hold his peace, though he sees his patient pass out of his hands bearing fire and sword and poison to future generations. There’s the Ban of Silence in its most diabolical form!”

Mr. Clyde regarded his household physician keenly. “I’ve never before seen you so stirred,” he observed.

“I’ve reason to be stirred.” The Health Master whirled suddenly upon his friend and employer. “Clyde, you’ve never questioned me as to my past.”

“No.”

“Have you never wanted it cleared up?”

“No.”

“You’ve always been willing to take me on trust?”

“Yes.”

“And I appreciate it. But now I’m going to tell you how I happened to come to you, a broken and ruined man.”

“Think it over, Strong,” advised Mr. Clyde. “Don’t speak now. Not that it would make any difference to me. I know you. If you were to tell me that you had committed homicide, I’d believe that it was a necessary and justifiable homicide.”

“Suicide, rather,” returned the other with a mirthless laugh; “professional suicide. I’ll speak now, if you don’t object.”

“Go ahead, then, if it will ease your mind.”